Confederate (CSV)

Captain

Osmun Latrobe

Grandson of US Capitol architect Bengamin Henry Latrobe, and son of Maryland engineer and railroad lawyer John H.B. Latrobe [more], he studied law and passed the bar before the War.

In March 1862 he was appointed Captain and Assistant Adjutant General (AAG) on Gen J.E. Johnston's staff; by June, as AAG and Inspector General (IG) with Gen Jones.1

On the Campaign

"Capt. Osman Latrobe, my inspector-general, on all occasions, and particularly at Sharpsburg, conducted himself with distinguished gallantry. Wherever the battle raged hottest, there was he, directing and encouraging the troops. I earnestly recommend his promotion to the rank of major. "2

The rest of the War

In December, as recommended, he was appointed Major, and joined the staff of Gen Longstreet, with whom he served until Appomattox.1 At Fredericksburg, he helped direct artillery fire and later wrote that he

"enjoyed the sight of hundreds of dead Yankees. Saw much of the work I had done in the way of severed limbs, decapitated bodies, and mutilated remains of all kinds, doing my soul good. Would that the whole northern army was such and I had my hand in it."3

Family lore mentions that he worked with his father on a railroad case against the Russian government in St. Petersburg, and that he was "prominent in the social life of Baltimore and New York" after the War. He married in 1871 in London, England.

References & notes

Birth and death information, and other anectdotal data, from a family genealogy online.

Notes

1 US War Department, List of Staff Officers of the Confederate States Army, 1861-1865, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1891 [AotW citation 463]

2 MGen D.R. Jones' ReportUS War Department, The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (OR), 128 vols., Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1880-1901, Vol. 19/Part 1 (Ser #27), pp. 885-887 [AotW citation 464]

3 Quoted in Citizen Soldiers of the Civil War: Why They Fought an essay by James M. McPherson in Rally on the High Ground: the National Park Service
Symposium on the Civil War, and transcribed online by the US Park Service. A bloodthirsty statement, indeed.
Latrobe, Osmun, Diary of a Confederate Major under General James Longstreet 1862-65, 2 vols., Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society Library, c. 1865 [AotW citation 465]